Scanning 35mm B/W negatives

[leica dream]

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I have just run an FP4 film through my very old camera and Harman Labs have developed for me.

I now need to scan on my Epson V700 Photo flatbed. I have tried a couple of shots and the results leave a lot to be desired. Now, that could be sheer rubbish from my ancient camera, the scanner settings I have used or the way I am scanning.

I use the basic Epson Scan2 software. Should I be using a more specific scanning software for 35mm B/W?

Capture One will not even open the scanned results., but I cannot fathom why. Photoshop limits available options. Whatever I search on the internet about scanning B/W I get results about converting digital colour images to b/w.

Guidance about where I am going wrong from more experienced 35mm users would be helpful.

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https://photopxl.com/digitizing-negatives-with-a-camera-revisited/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[TomB_tx]

I use an Epson V850, but used a V700 until it died. With practice both give quite acceptable results for viewing on computer monitor, using the Epson Scan software. I like being able to scan a full 24 exp roll with one click. It does take experimenting to find the best settings for your results.

When I find an exceptional shot I can fire up my darkroom and enlarger to wet print.

I have tried using a slide copier and digital camera for digitizing, but the Epson is faster and simpler for my work.

[250swb]

It would be useful to know what exactly is so bad about the scans you've done. But excellent results (given the scanner) should be possible with Epson Scan. It's very easy to use software and works well with the scanner. But you seem to be having problems with the files, so I'll suggest a couple of Epson Scan settings. As I recall the software encourages you to scan in Greyscale which is OK but in Photoshop convert then to Adobe RGB for post processing. Have Epson Scan save them at least in JPEG format and best in TIFF. Set the resolution to 2400 dpi (the native resolution of the V700 is about 2300 dpi), switch sharpening off (do sharpening in post processing), and of course you can't use any dust removal tools because it will interpret film grain as dust. You can also scan them as colour negatives and desaturate any residual colour tint in post processing to see if you get any more information out of them (with the proviso about not using dust removal).

Edited May 5, 2023 by 250swb

[pop]

11 hours ago, leica dream said:

Capture One will not even open the scanned results., but I cannot fathom why. Photoshop limits available options. Whatever I search on the internet about scanning B/W I get results about converting digital colour images to b/w.

Some image processing software will not even try to open monochrome images. The scanner has three colour channels. Any B/W image you will get out of that scanner will be processed by either the scanner or the scanning software. Try scanning in colour. You might then desaturate (as @250swb sugests above) or you might simply use one of the three colour channels.

Avoid JPEG like the plague. The image format is designed to introduce artefacts into the image which will be very hard to control. Also, some software will presume that it's OK to compress JPEG images which will introduce even more artefacts. JPEG is OK for publishing images when they don't have to be processed any more.

[leica dream]

That is all helpful. Thank you. I'll try some of the options mentioned and report back.

I don't think the camera digitization option is one for me.

Edited May 5, 2023 by leica dream

[Tom R]

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23 hours ago, leica dream said:

I have just run an FP4 film through my very old camera and Harman Labs have developed for me.

I now need to scan on my Epson V700 Photo flatbed. I have tried a couple of shots and the results leave a lot to be desired. Now, that could be sheer rubbish from my ancient camera, the scanner settings I have used or the way I am scanning.

I use the basic Epson Scan2 software. Should I be using a more specific scanning software for 35mm B/W?

Capture One will not even open the scanned results., but I cannot fathom why. Photoshop limits available options. Whatever I search on the internet about scanning B/W I get results about converting digital colour images to b/w.

Guidance about where I am going wrong from more experienced 35mm users would be helpful.

Well, we have a lot of unpack here. Let me address the Capture One issue, assuming that others will provide some directed feedback on your particular scanner as well as the subtleties of scanning. 

IIRC, If you're scanning, you're likely creating TIFF files and Capture One expects Adobe RGB or color spaces of that ilk ... such as sRGB, etc. I used to scan B+W negatives to 16 bit greyscale but then had to convert these (within Affinity, for example) to Adobe RGB in order to have Capture One play well. Note also, you will NOT have certain processing options with TIFF files as you would with DNG (or other Raw formats). 

Lots of people on this, and other forums, can provide approaches to scanning that may or may not prove helpful to you.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Tom R

[leica dream]

Thanks for the additional input, Tom, that clarifies a lot.

I have reached the conclusion that my problem is not with the scanning process, per se, but with the originating images produced by the 65 year old camera I have been trying to resurrect. All the information about manipulating with software is incredibly useful and I shall keep exploring techniques until I reach a point when I can either manipulate improvement on images satisfactorily or have to accept there is no option but to abandon. I suppose in the latter case I need then to evaluate whether I can afford any half decent Used 35mm camera as replacement because I am really enthused about returning to film.

Anyway, by way of illistration I attach two images. Amazingly I have dug out original negatives from the very first film I used in the camera in summer 1958. I have scanned two images with exactly the same scan settings.

The image of the car is from 1958 negative, and the image of the house is from my latest FP4 negative. Both are shown "as scanned" in Tiff then converted to JPEG for the forum but otherwise no adjustments. Hands down for me the car wins.  I need to perfect an improvement technique to at least the "virgin" car scan quality or abandon the vintage camera.

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[250swb]

From looking at the photos it's nothing to do with the camera, or scanning, or the negative, but simply that the original photograph was out of focus or made soft by movement. If the image of the house was from a recent FP4 negative this would back up this assumption because the image of the car from 1958 is sharper. Unless the whole story has been lost in the translation the fact is that you can't make or scan a negative to make it sharper if it wasn't focused in the first place.

 

[Doug A]

I agree with 250swb. The fact that the dust specks and other defects are sharply focused is further evidence. What kind of camera is involved here?

Edited May 6, 2023 by Doug A

[leica dream]

While value your opinions, 250swb & Doug A, I must disagree.

The house image is just a random image from the 36 on the latest FP4 where similar bad quality pervades every image. Likewise other images from the same 1958 car spool are of the same clear quality as the car. I suppose it was sheer bragging to see myself as a 17 year old strapping young lad with my first car that I selected that image.

The camera is a Braun Super Paxette llL. This is a rangefinder model where I am thinking that maybe the reangefinder mechanism has got out of kilter, hence bad focus, or the optics have deteriorated with age.   The latter might also account for the lack of sparkle in the image, quite separately from the blurredness. The house was shot on a bright sunny day with full sun on the house. f11 at 125th. Even my black dog on the lawn cannot be didentified clearly.

I see such wonderful film images on this thread so I know perfection is possible somehow.

[pop]

55 minutes ago, leica dream said:

latest FP4 where similar bad quality pervades every image

How did you determine the similar bad quality? Did you look at the individual frames with a magnifying glass?

Anyway, the scan of the house has a few defects which the car has not. I find the coloured borders of edges with high contrast quite striking:

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Brighter areas have purplish borders on the left hand side, greenish ones on the right hand side while the top and bottom borders do not have that tint. This might possibly suggest that the negative was not quite flat on the glass of the scanner, or not at the distance the scanner expected. This might partly explain why all of the picture seems blurred, but it leaves unexplained why the dust and lint seems to be sharper.

In the image of the house it's not quite clear if everything is equally blurred. I think the twigs in the top right corner might be a bit less blurred than the poplar trees in the background, but this could be my imagination. Why don't you take a few pictures with the aperture fully open? You could then see right away if the camera focuses too close or too far or if everything is equally blurry.

The camera seems to have a removable lens. Did you try to take the lens off and mount it again? Was the lens or the camera ever disassembled or dropped?

 

 

[Ouroboros]

One of the problems you will have when using an Epson V700 flatbed scanner (apart from it's limited resolution and Dmax which will  have greater effect on 35mm film  than larger film formats) is that the scanner's lens has a fixed focus and is not likely to be calibrated to your negative holder as supplied with your scanner. 

Third party adjustable original holders were, probably still are, available with adjustable feet that allow you to bring the negative closer to or further away from the scanner platen and lens.  You need to experiment with the adjustment until you find a position that gives optimum focus,  here's an example.

Before you do anything, though, it would be a good idea to use a loupe to assess the accuracy of focus in the negative.  If the negative is out of focus, use one that is focussed correctly, scan it and compare the focus of the scan against the negative.  If there is a clear difference, ie the negative image is in focus but the scan is out of focus, then you might want to think about replacing the film holder with an adjustable one or using another means of scanning your negatives such a with a dslr or a dedicated film scanner such as a Plustek.  

Both of the latter will likely give you improved scans over the V700 35mm scans for reasonable sized prints.

[250swb]

3 hours ago, leica dream said:

While value your opinions, 250swb & Doug A, I must disagree.

The camera is a Braun Super Paxette llL. This is a rangefinder model where I am thinking that maybe the reangefinder mechanism has got out of kilter, hence bad focus, or the optics have deteriorated with age.  

Baffled, but anyway here is where you can download a free .pdf Manual for the Braun Super Paxette II

https://www.butkus.org/chinon/paxette/paxette_super/super_paxette.htm

[leica dream]

I am so grateful for all your support.

Firstly, Pop - The way I know that all images on the FP4 roll are the same poor quality is just from the scanning results. I do not have means to examine negatives under strong lens. I note your comment about colour at the edges. That may be because this scan was done as suggested by another forum member as colour negative rather than black/white scanner setting. Finally, I have not tried removing the lens. Thank you for that suggestion, I'll take a look in the next few days. Who knows, maybe even a replacement lens might be a viable outcome if I can reduce factors down to lens failure/ageing, and if I could find one!

Ouroborus - Those are good points about the negative carrier. In fact the carrier I use is as supplied by Epson with the V700. What I do notice after reading your notes is that on the under side of the carrier nearest the scanner glass there are some "tags" with arrows and markings of "0" and "+". Looks like they are adjustable so I shall check the manual for information and likely effects. Looks to me like thet are pointing to "0" as delivered. I shall explore those further following your help. The fact remains, though, that for both images posted above, BOTH were scanned at the same time in the same carrier with the same settings so if the carrier is an issue it would have the same outcome for  CAR and HOUSE. My purpose of that test was to eliminate the scanner process through identical scan with the bad FP4 negative and good CAR negative under identical conditions. It seems to me from that test that the scanner is clear otherwise the scanned CAR image would have had the same bad outcome as the HOUSE image . I think that if good goes in, good comes out - likewise if bad source negatives go in, bad will come out.

250SWB - thank you for the link. I had accessed the instructions already and they are suitably 1950's basic.  I had missed the removable lens information which I'll explore.

I am still leaning to the camera as the culprit be it lens, range finder, shutter mechanism or what. As the film was processed by the Harman (Ilford) Lab in the UK I have discounted any issues there for the type of issues I have.

My frustration continues, but you will all have realise that I am a fighter and don't give up easily.............there must be a resolution one way or another.

 

[pop]

16 minutes ago, leica dream said:

I do not have means to examine negatives under strong lens.

Yes, you have. Use the lens of the camera.

 

17 minutes ago, leica dream said:

BOTH were scanned at the same time in the same carrier with the same settings so if the carrier is an issue it would have the same outcome for  CAR and HOUSE.

Not if the carrier was warped.

[250swb]

23 minutes ago, pop said:

Yes, you have. Use the lens of the camera.

 

Not if the carrier was warped.

But if the carrier was warped something would still be more in focus somewhere across the four rows of negatives being scanned.
 

The height adjustment feet on the Epson carrier are for fine tuning, the negative shown is way out of focus and besides which the dust is sharp and the dust will be on the negative. If the OP is saying the rangefinder may not be accurate fair enough, but again it would need to be way out to get such a soft negative of the house which would be focused at or near infinity. So without further explanations I’ll stick with the idea the OP has just missed focus when using the camera, either for mechanical reasons or not understanding the focus mechanism. It would be worth focusing on something using the rangefinder and then looking at the focus scale to see if they coincide. 

Edited May 7, 2023 by 250swb

[Ouroboros]

59 minutes ago, leica dream said:

Ouroborus - Those are good points about the negative carrier. In fact the carrier I use is as supplied by Epson with the V700. What I do notice after reading your notes is that on the under side of the carrier nearest the scanner glass there are some "tags" with arrows and markings of "0" and "+". Looks like they are adjustable so I shall check the manual for information and likely effects. Looks to me like thet are pointing to "0" as delivered. I shall explore those further following your help. The fact remains, though, that for both images posted above, BOTH were scanned at the same time in the same carrier with the same settings so if the carrier is an issue it would have the same outcome for  CAR and HOUSE. My purpose of that test was to eliminate the scanner process through identical scan with the bad FP4 negative and good CAR negative under identical conditions. It seems to me from that test that the scanner is clear otherwise the scanned CAR image would have had the same bad outcome as the HOUSE image . I think that if good goes in, good comes out - likewise if bad source negatives go in, bad will come out.

....I am still leaning to the camera as the culprit be it lens, range finder, shutter mechanism or what. As the film was processed by the Harman (Ilford) Lab in the UK I have discounted any issues there for the type of issues I have.

 

 

In that case, it would point to the image being out of focus at the taking stage.  It should be fairly easy to eliminate the culprit between the camera and the operator now!

[LocalHero1953]

You have said somewhere that this is a 50mm lens, perhaps f/2.8 at widest? If the lens was set anywhere near infinity I would expect it to look much sharper than this. The dog and the near grass look no better. 

How does the lens look? Clean, clear, unscratched, no fungus? Anything obvious when you shine a torch through it? The image reminds me of one of my photos from an Ensign box camera in the 50s when I was 7!

Edited May 7, 2023 by LocalHero1953

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[250swb]

I went back and looked at the manual and apart from a very slight ambiguity in the introduction to the Coupled rangefinder the following page is pretty clear about how to focus the camera. But I did notice the proximity of the aperture ring to the focus ring and it seems like it's one of those deals where if the grease has gummed up each time the aperture is adjusted it could also accidentally turn the focus ring, like a 50mm Elmar etc. It's a long shot because over a roll of film something would possibly have been in focus, but maybe it's something the OP could check.